Dr. Janeen Salak-Johnson obtained her PhD from Texas Tech University and pursued a Postdoctoral Training Fellowship in Psychoneuroimmunology at the University of Minnesota, supported by NIH funding. She served as a faculty member in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois until 2017 before transitioning to Oklahoma State University in 2018, where she was the Temple Grandin Endowed Professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences.

Salak-Johnson is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading stress physiology and animal welfare expert. Her research integrates basic and translational science to explore maternal-fetal interactions concerning stress physiology, the brain-gut-immune axis, and the welfare of future offspring. She actively participates in numerous national and international advisory boards and task forces as an animal care and well-being expert. With over a decade of involvement with AAALAC International, she has served as a former board of directors member and is currently engaged with the Agricultural Subcommittee and as a delegate for ASAS.

Salak-Johnson is esteemed as a foremost authority on animal welfare and has provided expert testimony in various legal matters, including California's Prop 12 and Massachusetts' Question 3, underscoring her impactful contributions to animal welfare research and industry partnerships. Recently, she authored an expert report for a lawsuit initiated by Oklahoma cattle and swine producers concerning the negative impacts of gas flares on their animals' welfare, aiding in the case's resolution. Additionally, she has been appointed to the National Pork Board's Sow Housing and Management Task Force.

She boasts a comprehensive publication history, with her research cited more than 4,550 times. Recently, she was acknowledged as one of the top 2% of researchers in her discipline. She has been invited to speak at various national and international conferences. Furthermore, she has guided over 55 graduate students and 40 undergraduate students as a research mentor/advisor. She has also been a panel and ad-hoc reviewer for the USDA and NSF. Actively engaged in the peer-review process, she reviews for numerous national and international journals and currently holds the position of academic editor for the International Journal: Animals, in addition to being a member of the Editorial Board for Frontiers in Ethology. Since 2019, she has obtained over $14 million in funding as a principal investigator, co-investigator, or mentor from the USDA and NIH.